All things Pelosi

Cycloptichorn wrote:

OCCOM BILL wrote:

Pelosi has no business doing what she's doing in Syria.

Is there any law preventing her from doing so?

The leaders of the ME aren't stupid, they see where things are going in America. We need to start building bridges sooner rather than later.

Cycloptichorn

Read MM's answer. He's dead right. The woman has a job to do, that has nothing to do with interfering in Syria with ZERO authority to do anything. (I thought there was actually a law against it, but I don't feel like looking for one right now.)

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors,

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes

Bill, you might be right. That she does it badly certainly makes it a second degree offense, no?

and even sports

Gee, turns out that Rep. Robert Alderholt (R-AL) and Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) left to visit Syria before Pelosi. Wonder why the White House didn't say anything about them going, or criticize them. Maybe because they're Republicans. Do I detect a faint whiff of <gasp> POLITICS here? Or is that the rank odor of hypocrisy coming from the White House?

Pelosi is not a private citizen within the meaning of the Logan Act. Moreover, she was not trying to reverse any official position of the USA. Members of congress, and even private citizens, frequently travel abroad and speak to top officials. This is no crime and often serves a useful purpose.

Bush is ignoring the Baker/Hamilton Report, which calls for meetings with Syria and other countries. Pelosi would be negligent were she to ignore this circumstance.

Let's see if all the big news outlets who lavished so much coverage on the White House's attack on Nancy Pelosi for her trip to Syria have any time for this.

It's well known by now that even as the White House was slamming Pelosi for her Syria trip GOP House members were making their own trip to Syria. This has drawn lots of attention already.

But check this out: It now looks like the White House might have actually been helping these House Republicans arrange their trip to Syria at the same time they were criticizing Pelosi for going there! Who's the source of this allegation? The chief of staff to one of the GOP Congressmen who went to Syria, that's who!

Take a look at this story from Pennsylvania's Lancaster Intelligencer Journal:

While U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's upcoming visit to Syria has caused the White Houe to bristle, a little-publicized rendezvous took place Sunday between Syria's president and Lancaster County's congressman.
And though Bush administration officials have been criticizing Pelosi, it's not clear what role the White House and the U.S. Department of State played when U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts and two other Republican congressmen met with Syrian President Bassar Assad.

Pitts is a Chester County Republican who represents Lancaster County.

Gabe Neville, Pitts' chief of staff, said Monday the conference between Assad and the three Republicans was intended to be "low profile."

"It was done in cooperation with the administration," he said.


Maybe I'm missing something, but the chief of staff to this Republican Congressman who went to Syria stated unequivocally that this trip was "done in cooperation with the administration." That would be the very same administration that has spent days and days attacking Pelosi for doing the same thing -- attacks that the big news orgs have eagerly spent a great deal of time and resources amplifying.

It's unclear what this GOP chief of staff's description of "cooperation" between these members of Congress and the administration means in practice. It could end up amounting to nothing at all. But it's certainly worthy of follow-up questions, wouldn't you agree?

We'll be pursuing it tomorrow.

President Bush yesterday said Speaker Pelosi's bipartisan delegation to Syria sends "mixed signals," implying that Pelosi overstepped her bounds by merely visiting Syria.

Bush's supporters have been repeating the argument:

Former ambassador John Bolton: "I would simply hope that people would understand that, under the Constitution, the president conducts foreign policy, not the speaker of the House."

Former Gov. Mitt Romney: "It has long been the established principle of this country that the president of the United States leads our foreign policy. And if you don't like the president, then you change him. But you don't have the two parties each conducting foreign policy in the way they think it ought to be conducted."

Speaker Pelosi has done nothing to suggest that she intended to speak on behalf of President Bush or the U.S. Government. But her predecessors haven't been so respectful.

In 1997, Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) led a delegation to Colombia at a time when U.S. officials were trying to attach human rights conditions to U.S. security assistance programs. Hastert specifically encouraged Colombian military officials to "bypass" President Clinton and "communicate directly with Congress."

…a congressional delegation led by Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) which met with Colombian military officials, promising to "remove conditions on assistance" and complaining about "leftist-dominated" U.S. congresses of years past that "used human rights as an excuse to aid the left in other countries." Hastert said he would to correct this situation and expedite aid to countries allied in the war on drugs and also encouraged Colombian military officials to "bypass the U.S. executive branch and communicate directly with Congress."

Subsequently, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Myles Frechette sent a cable complaining that Hastert's actions had undermined his leverage with the Colombian military leadership.

In other instances, Hastert actually guided congressional staff to unilaterally reach deals with Colombian officials:

House Foreign Affairs Committee staff, at the direction of the Hastert group, would fly to Colombia, meet with the nation's anti-narcotics police and negotiate the levels and terms of assistance, the scope of the program and the kinds of equipment that would be needed. Rarely were the U.S. diplomatic personnel in our embassy in Bogata consulted about the "U.S." position in these negotiations, and in a number of instances they were excluded from or not even made aware of the meetings.

If the right is looking for members of Congress clearly infringing on the president's constitutional prerogatives, they should look at Hastert, not Pelosi.

If you're going to argue the Logan Act, go back and read it as it was presented above. It does NOT say "without the approval of the president". It DOES say "without the approval of the United States". George W. Bush is not synonymous with the United States. Looking at the polls from the last several years, it's pretty clear that in fact the United States doesn't approve of him. He's the one that should shut up. Nancy Pelosi is one of the two heads of the U.S.Congress, a co-equal branch of the government to the executive. Which pretty much gives her the right to go to Syria and to ignore the White House's blatantly political spin on the whole thing. She is at least as much "the United States" as W. is. And she's considerably more in tune with what the people of the United States want.